Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium on Mathematical Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis

Topics addressed include: multivariate spline method; normal mixture analysis applied to remote sensing; image data analysis; classifications in spatially correlated environments; probability density functions; graphical nonparametric methods; subpixel registration analysis; hypothesis integration in image understanding systems; rectification of satellite scanner imagery; spatial variation in remotely sensed images; smooth multidimensional interpolation; and optimal frequency domain textural edge detection filters

Technology assessment of advanced automation for space missions

Six general classes of technology requirements derived during the mission definition phase of the study were identified as having maximum importance and urgency, including autonomous world model based information systems, learning and hypothesis formation, natural language and other man-machine communication, space manufacturing, teleoperators and robot systems, and computer science and technology

Appling parallelism in image mining

Image mining deals with the study and development of new technologies that allow accomplishing this subject. A common mistake about image mining is identifying its scopes and limitations. Clearly it is different from computer vision and image processing areas. Image mining deals with the extraction of image patterns from a large collection of images, whereas the focus of computer vision and image processing is in understanding and/or extracting specific features from a single image. On the other hand it might be thought that it is much related to content-based retrieval area, since both deals with large image collections. Nevertheless, image mining goes beyond the simple fact of recovering relevant images, the goal is the discovery of image patterns that are significant in a given collection of images. As a result, an image mining systems implies lots of tasks to be done in a regular time. Images provide a natural source of parallelism; so the use of parallelism in every or some mining tasks might be a good option to reduce the cost and overhead of the whole image mining process. At this work we will try to draw the image minnig problem: its computational cost, and to propose a possible global or local parallel solution.Eje: Procesamiento Concurrente, Paralelo y DistribuidoRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Climate change and visual imagery

© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.O'Neill, S. J. and Smith, N. (2014), Climate change and visual imagery. WIREs Clim Change, 5: 73–87. doi: 10.1002/wcc.249 The definitive version is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.249/abstractMany actors—including scientists, journalists, artists, and campaigning organizations—create visualizations of climate change. In doing so, they evoke climate change in particular ways, and make the issue meaningful in everyday discourse. While a diversity of climate change imagery exists, particular types of climate imagery appear to have gained dominance, promoting particular ways of knowing about climate change (and marginalizing others). This imagery, and public engagement with this imagery, helps to shape the cultural politics of climate change in important ways. This article critically reviews the nascent research area of the visual representations of climate change, and public engagement with visual imagery. It synthesizes a diverse body of research to explore visual representations and engagement across the news media, NGO communications, advertising, and marketing, climate science, art, and virtual reality systems. The discussion brings together three themes which occur throughout the review: time, truth, and power. The article concludes by suggesting fruitful directions for future research in the visual communication of climate change.ESR

Marketing Pastimes: Comparing the Brand Strengths of Real Madrid & The New York Yankees

In March of 2012, Forbes Magazine ranked the most valuable brands in all of sports. Trailing only Manchester United’s $2.235 billion valuation, the next most valuable franchises are Spain’s Real Madrid of La Liga BBVA, and Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees. As the two of the three most dominant brands in all of sports, Real Madrid and the New York Yankees are frequently mentioned in the same context as one another, but rarely discussed through more extensive market research comparing their brand management strategies. By utilizing Kevin Keller’s acclaimed Customer-Based Brand Equity model, the relative strength of the brands for Real Madrid and the New York Yankees will be assessed based on their ability to successfully integrate six core components within their brand: brand salience, brand performance, brand imagery, brand judgments, brand feelings, and brand resonance. Through a combination of these indicators of brand strength, this paper will investigate which brand is stronger at the domestic and international levels, as both a sports team and commercial enterprise. Awarded by FIFA in 2008 as the “Best Club of the 20th Century,” Real Madrid’s remarkable history is unparalleled by any other team in the world’s most popular sport: soccer. With a record 31 LIGA BBVA and 9 UEFA Champions League titles, Real Madrid’s sporting excellence is matched only by its brand equity, with a valuation of$1.877 billion. Owned by a coalition of members, known as “Madridistas,” Real Madrid has capitalized on its brand loyalty, translating recent team performances into $214 million in operating income, thereby establishing the club as the most profitable brand in all of team sports in 2011. Valued slightly below Real Madrid at$1.85 billion, the New York Yankees are the most storied franchise in all of American sports. As the most acclaimed brand in America’s favorite pastime, the New York Yankees have won an incredible 27 World Series Champions - 16 more than the 2nd place St. Louis Cardinals and 3 more than any other North American sports franchise, in the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens. As a true sports enterprise, the New York Yankees generate the most revenue of all sports teams worldwide and represent a core component of Yankee Global Enterprises LLC (YGE), with a collective valuation of $5.1 billion. Though typically discussed in conjunction with the other, Real Madrid and the New York Yankees have each reached their respective valuations and positioning as global brands in very distinct ways. With its commercial business model roughly only a decade old, Real Madrid’s brand resonance, and subsequent brand equity, is derivative of the universal nature of soccer, taking advantage of the captivation of audiences worldwide and its presence as a truly global brand. The New York Yankees, have embraced this model since 1973 under the direction of George Steinbrenner, and have amassed such brand strength through its attentiveness in its domestic market and the salience of YGE. With virtually equal brand valuations, Real Madrid has maintained a more effective positioning as a global sports brand, with the New York Yankees utilizing its domestic strength to influence global markets. Ultimately, due to their longer season and greater local population, the Yankees are a stronger domestic brand, with Real Madrid’s global appeal catering to soccer fans enabling them to become the stronger global brand

A Semiotic Approach to the Evolution of Symboling Capacities During the Late Pleistocene with Implications for Claims of ‘Modernity’ in Early Human Groups

abstract: This research uses Peircean Semiotics to model the evolution of symbolic behavior in the human lineage and the potential material correlates of this evolutionary process in the archaeological record. The semiotic model states the capacity for symbolic behavior developed in two distinct stages. Emergent capacities are characterized by the sporadic use of non-symbolic and symbolic material culture that affects information exchange between individuals. Symbolic exchange will be rare. Mobilized capacities are defined by the constant use of non-symbolic and symbolic objects that affect both interpersonal and group-level information exchange. Symbolic behavior will be obligatory and widespread. The model was tested against the published archaeological record dating from ~200,000 years ago to the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary in three sub-regions of Africa and Eurasia. A number of Exploratory and Confirmatory Data Analysis techniques were used to identify patterning in artifacts through time consistent with model predictions. The results indicate Emergent symboling capacities were expressed as early as ~100,000 years ago in Southern Africa and the Levant. However, capacities do not appear fully Mobilized in these regions until ~17,000 years ago. Emergent symboling is not evident in the European record until ~42,000 years ago, but develops rapidly. The results also indicate both Anatomically Modern Humans and Neanderthals had the capacity for symbolic behavior, but expressed those capacities differently. Moreover, interactions between the two populations did not select for symbolic expression, nor did periodic aggregation within groups. The analysis ultimately situates the capacity for symbolic behavior in increased engagement with materiality and the ability to recognize material objects can be made meaningful– an ability that must have been shared with Anatomically Modern Humans’ and Neanderthals’ most recent common ancestor. Consequently, the results have significant implications for notions of ‘modernity’ and human uniqueness that drive human origins research. This work pioneers deductive approaches to cognitive evolution, and both strengths and weaknesses are discussed. In offering notable results and best practices, it effectively operationalizes the semiotic model as a viable analytical method for human origins research.Dissertation/ThesisAppendices A-N: SpreadsheetsDoctoral Dissertation Anthropology 201

The Drawing gesture in design project: Portuguese case study

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the statement that drawing influences the design project practice through technical resolution but especially through heuristic representation. By critically reflecting about the state of art supported by the arguments of recognized authors it is suggested a theoretical approach to the topic based in 3 perspectives of interpreting drawings: (1) formal perspective defined by a conceptual context, (2) productive perspective defined by a constructive context and (3) the communicative perspective defined by a expressive context. The study case addresses the practice of 16 Portuguese designers whose work is institutionally recognized in Portugal and abroad. In the Portuguese case, historically, drawing having the role of project instrument may have contaminated design practice. We seek to justify the hypothesis that designer’s particular use of drawing influence the project’s conferring to it a singular identity. Drawing differentiates the designed object through the act of composing. It is possible to conclude that ‘adding’ the hand to the brain – the shape to the content / the matter to the idea – stands for the achievement of the project and simultaneously for a revelation of the object through the poetic expression of the action of drawing